Comic-Con or Bust: America’s Premier Summer Destination in San Diego, California

(Originally Published in Nationalist Magazine, July 2013)

In July 2013, Comic-Con International will mark its 44th year being held, making it the longest continuously run comics and popular-art convention in the United States! But how did a convention focused on such a supposedly “exclusive” medium as comic books get so large? And how did San Diego become such a premier destination for these feverish fans of pop-culture?

Since the Golden Age of Comics back in the mid 1930s, comic books have been a staple of American popular culture. But times have not always been so accepting and/or forgiving to the comic book industry, and as the market bottomed out in the 1990s and comic books went from mainstream to cult status, reserved for collectors and die-hard fans of the genre, both the mood and feel of comic books changed in regard to content and demographic appeal.

Now that we are in what is known as the Dark Age of comic books, where subject matter has moved from light-hearted and family-friendly entertainment to serious issues often involving adult themes and/or content, there has been a steady resurgence in the mainstream obsession with the medium, so much so that companies such as Warner Bros. and Paramount have expanded the genre of comic books to mass-appeal mediums such as film and television.

With all of the new press and mass appeal that old stories of survival and goodwill can have for the general viewing public, stories that the genre of comic books has engendered and can still bring about, and of course with the revenue possibilities that large companies, such as Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Entertainment, can project from the once fledgling and bankrupt market of comic book collecting, it’s no wonder that places and venues such as Comic-Con International have not only become places for the faithful to gather, but have indeed become cult icons for newer and newer generations.

Nothing is more American as the virtue of perseverance, and Comic-Con International: San Diego, as well as other local and state conventions that carry the banner of comic books and pop-art into the future, have indeed come so far based on the dogged perseverance of both fans and the comic book market itself!

Given the convention’s rising popularity with newer and newer generations of fandoms, the world will descend upon the United States en masse, both plain-clothed and in cosplay – the art of costume dressing like a favorite character – from its Preview Night on Wednesday, July 17 to the four consecutive days that the convention will run: July 18-21, 2013.

San Diego, California will represent for many what the struggle for place and identity through art can achieve at the corporate level, as Comic-Con International: San Diego identifies itself as a nonprofit educational corporation created for awareness. In this way, San Diego becomes a celebratory beacon that can show the rest of the world what popular art, comic books and the investment in these mediums can bring about, and why supporting the arts is such a major and vital investment for future generations.

And yet with all of the fanfare can also come notoriety, and Comic-Con International has and continues to have its fill.

Tickets for this year’s event went on sale at 9:00AM PST and sold out within 93 minutes. This is perhaps a more favorable statistic than ticket sales last year, where tickets reportedly sold out in less than an hour…an hour! Within 30 minutes all of the 4-day passes were sold, and after another 10 minutes, the single-day passes had all been purchased as well.

To appease long-time and die-hard fans, Comic-Con International: San Diego has tried to assure fans that a ticket re-sale is always a possibility in the near future. The system that runs the badge sales is infamous for striking fear and, mostly, anger, into those attempting to purchase tickets, thereby leaving countless die-hard fans frozen in a virtual line and staring at a computer screen with nothing better to do than to pray and gnash teeth.

This year, the ticket re-sale did indeed happen, and on June 10, 2013 all members who opted to receive e-mail communication from Comic-Con International received an update about the fact that the 2013 badge resale would be conducted utilizing a random drawing.

Though this was glorious news to most, like myself, who had been waiting for just a sliver of hope that there might be another chance to make it to the mecca of geekdom in San Diego this year, for others, such as international fans and members, the news was earth-shattering. Due to the fact that there are no standard rules for conducting random drawings, international fans and members were excluded from the random drawing.

And yet even with this drop in the number of eligible members, many, such as myself, were still left without tickets at the end of the resale. All there is now is to hope against hope that next year will be different, that perhaps the venue will expand as to allow for more participants, and that maybe, just maybe, at this same time next year, I will be outfitting myself in superhero spandex to join the ranks of San Diego’s madding crowd of superhero fans!

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